I'm very proud and honoured to feature
Kyra Lennon on the blog today, as part of her tour for her fantastic debut novel,
Game On. Since I met Kyra in the A-Z Challenge, she's become one of my best author buddies due to her generous and outgoing nature. She even offered to critique my WIP with nothing in return, and her feedback has been invaluable! So I jumped at the chance to interview her as part of the tour. Let's get to the questions...
Hi, Kyra. First, can you tell us a bit
about who you are and your background?
I
live in the UK, on the South Coast, and have lived here all my life. When I
left school, I attempted college for almost a year and realised that it was not
where I wanted to be, then began working in retail. I’ve worked in gift shops
and toy shops, and I loved it! Working in those kinds of shops in a
seaside town at the height of summer is insanely busy but always a lot of fun.
I've been in many such shops. Bet you've got loads of stories to tell!
When did you first realise you wanted to
write and can you tell us about how you got started?
I’ve
always written. My mum encouraged reading when I was little, and writing seemed
like a natural progression for me. There was a long period of time when I
stopped because working full time didn’t really allow me much time for writing
fiction, but it was something I always thought about, and something I always
loved.
It took me a long time to write seriously too, because I didn't think I could write anything good. You've got to get past that and just get on with it!
What are your biggest inspirations when it
comes to writing?
Life.
Just being out in the world, where so much is happening, it’s hard not to be
inspired. I’ve always been fascinated by people, too. I like to people watch
and imagine scenarios about what brought them to where they are, what makes
them tick, and why they act the way they do. Life, in general, inspires me.
I agree, there's endless ideas to be had from life and people!
Tell us about your debut
novel, Game On. How did the story come about and what was the process of
writing the book from beginning to end?
I think the synopsis says it best! After swapping her
small town life to work for one of the top soccer teams in the U.S., Leah
Walker thought she could finally leave the ghosts of her past behind. However,
when she meets serial womanizer, Radleigh McCoy, the memories of her old life
come swarming back, and she is forced to ask herself whether she has really
changed at all.
The
story was kind of born around an image I had of Radleigh McCoy in my head. He
didn’t have a name then, but he had this arrogant, disrespectful-to-women
personality that needed exploring. I wanted to know what would happen when he
came up against a woman who wouldn’t fall for his sleazy lines, and the whole
idea for the story just kept on growing from there.
Game
On is one of the only stories I have ever written in the correct order! I used
to write scenes as they came to me, then filled in the gaps. Once I finished, I
realised that writing in the correct order is actually easier for me.
Everything's a learning process!
You're currently working on the follow up.
Any advance nuggets of info you can share with us? Go on, you know you want
to... ;)
Haha!
Well, the follow up to Game On is loosely titled Foul Play (I will need to put
some more thought into this because it’s kind of an ugly title, but it fits the
story and the soccer theme!). It focuses on Jesse Shaw, the youngest member of
the Westberg Warriors team. It follows almost directly after the end of Game
On, and it’s the story of Jesse and his best friend, Hunter, going to London
for a month, to get away from the craziness of L.A. Foul Play is a little bit
different to Game On for a few reasons. Firstly, it falls into the category of
YA, which is something I never really planned to do. Secondly, there is very
little soccer because it’s off season. And finally, it is dual POV. While in
London, Jesse meets a girl named Isabelle, and half of the story is told from
her perspective. It seemed like a good way to introduce her character, and we
will see her again later in the series.
I like how you're sowing seeds for further entries. It'll be good to hear more from Jesse, and I'm interested to see how you handle the male POV (it'll be great, I'm sure!) Also, can anyone come up with any more soccer-based titles? How about "Striking Out"? Lol, I'm sure others can do better!
Your day job is writing
freelance articles, which is awesome. How do you balance this with your more
creative side, as well as blogging and other such activities? In other words,
describe your daily routine, if you can?
I don’t really have a daily routine. The nature of freelancing
is such that, if there is work to do, I’ll do it. It’s not always possible to
have set working hours, or set amounts of articles per day, so I just work when
the chance arises, and the rest of the time I write fiction.
At least you always get to write!
What do you like to do when you're not
writing or blogging?
Sleep
LOL! I like to read a lot. I am on a huge YA kick at the moment, and about
three quarters of my Kindle is filled with YA books. My other big passion is
jewellery making. I got good at it very quickly, and it is so relaxing!
I'll have to get my wife in touch with you, she loves custom jewellery!
And just for fun, can you describe yourself
as if describing a character from one of your novels?
Ack,
I was dreading this question LOL! Okay, let’s give it a try:
A
twenty-something woman stared out at the calming blue waves, raking her fingers
through the hot sand. It was another beautiful summer’s day, and she’d finally
swapped her trademark jeans and boots for a skirt and sandals. Sure, the skirt
was denim, but going too far out of her clothing comfort zone was just not in
her nature. Her dark hair – up in a high, and possibly unsuitable for her age,
ponytail – swung in the light sea breeze as she watched the brave people,
swimming and splashing in the ocean. In spite of living by the sea for her
whole life, she’d never learned to swim herself. And that was okay with her.
She’d always been more of a beach volleyball kind of girl anyway.
Ha, nice job! Where I come from it's usually a bit too cold to swim anyway...
Here is my review of Game On!
I really enjoyed this book. While I would not typically pick up a book in the category of chick lit, human relationships are fascinating to me and this story deals with some heavy emotions which feel very raw at times. Leah is an eminently likeable protagonist and the author draws us in to share in her conflicting feelings as she undergoes various trials and tribulations at the hands of her arch nemesis, star footballer Radleigh McCoy. Will they? Won't they? Well, I'm not going to give anything away but I will say that you're going to find it hard to tear yourself away. Lennon has a sparky and engaging voice and there are many one-liners that had me laughing out loud. A perfect holiday read!
You can pick up a copy at the following places...
And you can find Kyra through these avenues:
I wish Kyra all the best for the remainder of her jaunt around the blogosphere!
NB: Just a quick note to say that I'm disappearing again as we're going down to Brighton for a few days, but I aim to be back in full force next Wednesday. :)
I'm pulling this blog out of temporary hibernation to bring you a guest post from the lovely J.L. Campbell as part of her Friendship-is-Forever blog tour, celebrating the release of her excellent novel, Distraction. If you like novels with vivid settings, real characters and tangible emotions, you won't go far wrong with this. Find it on Amazon here, but, for a chance to win yourself an e-copy, just leave a comment below!
It was fun to weave all the stories together and
resolve most of the plot points, however, it took a fair amount of time to wrap
things up nicely. Aside from a general edit, I had to take the story apart,
print and compile it in three units. By doing this, I was able to read each
woman’s story in isolation to ensure that everything was in the correct
sequence and individual problems were sorted out properly. 
To celebrate the release of Distraction, I wrote a
prequel, A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Steps to Distraction in which you’ll meet Dionne, Kyra and Justine
a year before Distraction takes place. I hope
you’ll like this taste of friendship and things Jamaican. Download your
complimentary copy from Smashwords. 
